The Rise and Fall of a Marauder
by muffinlover
Summary: A series of thoughshots about Sirius and his life which leads to the ultimate event....
1. Meeting the Marauders

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. J. K. Rowling is the sole (and always will be) owner of the series. 

A/N: I know, I know, I probably should be ashamed that I had even started this. It's been done before, and my creativity span is miniscule compared to others'. But I'm trying out different styles of writing, and I probably won't be successful on this, but who knows? Enjoy now!

The Rise and Fall of a Marauder

Chapter One: Meeting the Marauders

            Today was the day. He'd been waiting for this….ever since he could remember. It was going to be the most important and exciting day of his entire ten years. Hogwarts was the best wizarding school in all of England. _Wait, _he thought, _there's no__ other school in __Britain__ that's for Wizardry!_

            Between the rapid shaking that Kreacher was giving him, and the shrill screaming from downstairs that he was getting from his mother, he smiled to himself and suddenly…._head butt!_ Kreacher was knocked to the ground. 

            Sirius chuckled to himself. He had mastered this technique over the last few months. It was all in the angle he did so. He had observed Kreacher from afar for a while, and found in various lashings inflicted to him by his father or himself, that the areas near his ears were rather vulnerable, as he would cry out more often when pain was administered there.  

            Sirius had despised Kreacher from the moment he was made Head House Elf until now, which had been…..all Sirius's life. He was _destined_ to be enemies with him, it was premeditated for him. They were almost arch-rivals.  Except Sirius was superior to him, and he was not about to waste his time picking on a _house elf. Plus, he had other adversaries to worry about._

            Like _Marlene McKinnon. The next-door neighbors' only daughter and ultimate snob. She was out to get Sirius ever since he had put Wartcap powder in her bedroom when sneaking in there at her family's housewarming he had been invited to. It was just a silly joke; he still thought to himself, she can't even take silly jokes. _

            But the girl still insisted that it had done damage to her naturally beautiful hands, and that they would never be the same, with or without magic. _Girls, he thought, __they will never understand._

            Anyway, she had always tattled on him whenever he went out on his adventures (various trips to the other next-door neighbor's backyard, terrorizing the nifflers they were experimenting with, many more) and would always be rewarded by his mother with a few Sickles. _Sickles_ for _telling on him! It was as if his mother lived to punish him. But he wasn't even going to begin to think about her. _

            And the worst thing about Marlene: each time she got a Sickle, she would stick her tongue out at him. The most immature, callow thing he had ever been forced to watch, and this was him saying that. Being lashed by _Kreacher of all house elves was not fun; never mind having to see her get away with her nasty _girly _habits. All he wanted to do was ruin her _dress_ she always went on about to her other _girlfriends_. _

            But anyway, today he would get away from all of that. Well, most of it anyway. He wouldn't let _Marlene_ get in his way at Hogwarts. He would simply be in another house, that's all. And if worse came to worse, he could always play some pranks on her. He always did anyway. Like that time when he put half of his stash of dungbombs (which, we'll just say Sirius was one who was an avid collector of dungbombs and had enough to make the whole neighborhood reek of dung for many weeks) in her clothes closet. If he knew one thing that she loved more than money, it was _clothes. And oh, he could smell the stench to this day. Revenge was sweet, especially in the shape and essence of dung._

            Today was going to go okay for him. No more Regulus being the one to be kiss-up to his mother, no more _Kreacher, _and finally, just_ finally, _he would be able to do magic. 

            Oh, the exhilaration he would have with his wand. He had just bought it yesterday—but when his mother caught him looking at it too much with the slightest hint of a smile on his face, she took it away. But he would show her. He would do well at Hogwarts, and still have time to prank his enemies. 

            He had been halfway through breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast with a nasty acid-like beverage of orange juice, his least favorite breakfast of all time. It had certainly been his mother and Kreacher both together on this, just for his enjoyment. But all of the various thoughts had been running through his head by the time he had choked down his toast. 

            "My young Sirius—why are you eating like a wildebeest?" His mother's sour-sweet voice had become stronger with each step she had taken toward him. He wanted to get over his breakfast and get upstairs to finish his packing—something that you would rarely catch him doing, but then again, if you had been waiting eleven years to get out of the capitol of Evil, then you would also be running around making the necessary preparations to escape.

            "Oh, it's a new technique I found in your magazine, what is it called again? Oh, _Witch Weekly. Speed eating helps your intelligence." Sirius quickly lied, but the anticipation and his extreme frustration with the woman had overcome him after being so long kept in._

            "Well, I want to leave promptly in a half-an-hour, as I have a few things to take care of before going to that _Muggle_ development." Sirius looked at the antique clock on the wall. It was nine-thirty. _Ugh._ Putting up with a whole half-hour with her before being seen onto the _Hogwarts Express was too much to require of him. That was just like asking someone with both arms broken and a sprained ankle to break dance, or whatever those Muggles did._

"I really should talk to Dumbledore about having that train go there; it really is such a nuisance. Maybe a few Galleons and a talk from your father will convince him….." She walked slowly away, still muttering to herself, as if Sirius wasn't there. Sirius disregarded it. The woman was out-of-order as far as he was concerned. No use in trying to change her. 

            A half an hour later, he was being dragged around by his mother to the local Dark Arts shop, or as she referred to, "that nice little shop by the end of the avenue." She claimed to be picking up "a few repairs and a gift for Doris, that sweet woman you met the other day," but Sirius knew better. He didn't want to know what they were, so he just stood outside the shop, taking in his surroundings. 

            _Just a half an hour, and I'm home-free, he told himself. A minute later, she was out the door with what looked like nothing. He knew that she had an Enlargement charm put on her purse for purposes of stashing her "goods." _

            And like that, they were at Platform Nine and Three Quarters standing quietly. She was telling him to uphold his honor and not to mess around at all. And he had better be in Slytherin, or Dumbledore would be hearing from her and the rest of The Family (the purebloods and all of their children). _Fifteen minutes, fourteen minutes and thirty seconds, ten, seven….._

"Well, I guess….this is goodbye. Go on now, Sirius, and make us proud. Don't forget, Tonjours Pur." She said with a renewed look of what was that? A smile? No, that was not. That woman was incapable of smiling. He mused that it was probably a wince and a _half-smile. He murmured his goodbye, and got on the train. _

            It didn't take him very long to find his compartment, and he had it all to himself. He'd expected to find someone soon enough, so he sat down and relaxed (something he could get used to without being accused by his mother of being totally useless). He was going to be fine. If he hadn't seen McKinnon at all this morning and was finally on the train, then the next seven years were going to be a breeze for him…

Barely three minutes later, after he had spent time looking at his girly-looking hands (they had hints of _nails growing there, and they didn't have any scabs or dirt anywhere, his darned mother was way too high on the concept of hygiene), there was a knock and then a slide of the compartment door._

 At the opening was a boy who had raven-black hair and glasses on his face. He looked confident, and was about the same size as him. And more importantly, he looked just as Sirius had felt three minutes ago: in the mood for some mischief. The grin on his face gave it away. It was obvious that he was as ambitious as any other eleven year old boy of his stature would be. 

"Do you mind?" The boy queried with a confident and cool voice. 

"Oh, not at all, help yourself," Sirius mirrored his tone. He knew that this boy and he would get along well, at least for the afternoon if not for a while. 

"_Splendid. Oh, by the way, my name's James….."_

A/N: So? What do you think? Is it worth taking further? Please tell me! Hope you enjoyed it!


	2. A Strange New Discovery

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling owns the property and rights to him and his world.

A/N: Okay, I got my first review, and I've been feeling impulsive to write lately. Firstly, I wanted to thank XxDragon Princess NikkixX for her _wonderful _review, and am therefore dedicating this chapter to her! 

The Rise and Fall of a Marauder

Chapter Two: A Strange Discovery                   

            "Oh! I'm so glad you could make it!" Nearly Headless Nick was standing in front of him and James with a slightly-plastered on grin on his face. _Probably his way of expressing that he's flustered, he thought. __Wait a second….can ghosts be stressed when they're dead?_

            "Oh, no problem Nick, we would have _died_—no pun intended—if we had to sit for a whole hour eating food and listening to the girls down the table talking about "how cute that unicorn they saw the other day was," James answered with a grin on his face. He was partially right really, except he left out the part where they had made a feast for all of the students who attended. 

But he went to this instead, as he had never been to a ghost's Death-Day party before. James and he had made really good friends with Nearly Headless Nick, and when they were invited to this Death-Day party, the both of them almost immediately jumped at the chance at going.  Plus, it wasn't very often (if ever at all) that you could smell the dead fish on the refreshment table and get a fresh scent of what could have been "some great cod" at other parties.

            He and James had both been looking to this really. They had become the best of friends over the last month and a half—almost finishing each other's sentences. It was almost like—_they were girls at a sleepover, giggling and playing together. _The horror! They had giggled a lot like girls—he'd give you that any day, but they never had any _sleepover-like activity, you know, with the playing with the hair, and the "who do you fancy?," the works._

            He had also made acquaintances with others. Like Remus Lupin, a boy who was slightly shorter than James and he, with a dirty-blonde and deep brown-eyed look to him. He had been nice enough, of course, but he was awfully shy. 

But shy would be an understatement when it came to Peter Pettigrew, a glassy-eyed, stout boy who looked as if someone had put a Petrifying spell on his face, as it always had that same look of terror and worry. Sirius had once gotten the idea that if you were to feed him some hippogriff dung (he had seen lots and lots; his Uncle Alphard had a whole farm with them. And it wouldn't be very hard to feed Pettigrew some, it didn't look much different from the insides of a pumpkin pie), he would throw it up a few minutes later as a diamond.

            But this party was a trip only James and he would make together. They didn't really know the other boys, and they didn't think that they would be thrilled with the idea of going to a Death-Day party instead of a feast.

            For about twenty minutes they walked around, talking to various ghosts, checking out their surroundings (meaning that they studied the juicy-looking skeleton in the corner of the dungeon and took bets to see who would pull the head off without letting the ghosts see first), and playing "place the noose on the human's neck."

            "Hey, Sirius, look at this!" James was groping around in a bowl of earth worms. For one, what James was doing didn't _look _right, never mind the fact that he heard footsteps that didn't sound so ghostly very near the dungeon they were "mingling" with the ghosts. 

Normally, Sirius would have been comfortable and quite happy with the situation he was in, but right now he felt some….he could quite place it….tinge of guilt. Since when did _he, Sirius Orion Black, feel __guilty? Maybe that cod or whatever it was at that table was getting to him. Or maybe the ghosts did something with his head. Or maybe even that sight of James and those worms….that'd take a while to get out of his head. _

"Um, James….you _do realize that someone's coming? I think it might be a little hard to explain that worm swill you have on your hands."_

"Oh, right. Oy Sirius! What's wrong?" James had seen the look on his face. He then gasped a minute later as if he had just realized something. "Are you feeling _guilty? Ha! Oh, fine we'll sod off before McGonagall catches us. But you're going to explain to Nick why we have to leave so early."_

Well, Sirius wasn't actually feeling guilty; he just had a feeling that they would get caught if they didn't leave soon. He went to Nick, explained that he and James had to get back to the feast, and, just to flatter him, said that the cod's stench was excellent. They got out of there quick, and just to their misfortune, they were being followed by none other than Severus Snape. He didn't exactly see them, but he wasn't going to stick around to let him.

If there was one thing he _wasn't going to do, it wasn't going to be answering to Snape why they were wandering in the dungeons when they could be at the feast. So, he grabbed James, and stuffed him in the closet with him.  _

"Sirius, _what the bloody—"Sirius shushed him with his mouth. Even though it was one of the lamest things to do in the world, it was the only thing he could do. James relaxed to the point where he understood, and a few minutes later, after all signs of a big nose and smelly hair (yes, the hair had an odor, and Sirius was sure it didn't smell like the cod) they were out of the closet._

"How did you do that? Are you—_psychic?!"_

"I seriously don't know. Let's just get to bed—I'm starved as it is, and I don't want to have to have the horror stories of Snape's hair in my head for the rest of the night, okay?"

"Fine, whatever. But think, with that ability we can….._prank Lily Evans!"_

A/N: So, what do you think? And tell me if you think that Sirius is a little…OOC, as I'm not sure if he is, and that weird idea with the premonition thing just popped into my head and I made it so that he felt a little strange. Maybe it's James I need to work on, I don't know. *shrugs* And I'm not sure if Sirius's middle name is Orion, but if any of you know what it is, would you mind telling me? Anyhoo, I wanted to get this chapter out as fast as I could, and although I just got my homework done, swim practice is over, and I have free time, I took my opportunity. Well, hope you all enjoyed it!


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